...

When you will loose your arrogance, you will find me.
The best is the enemy of the good. (Voltaire)

wdtv wd tv live

So i received a wdtv live, i needed a media player from long time ago. the choice was between asus o!play(100$) and wd tv live(120$). i picked wdtv live because of the ram 256 vs 128. here are some pictures of it :
modding :
so this is what i found so far:

• b-rad.cc firmware for wdtvlive (internal flash) (Note : you have to take the wdtvlive firmware and not wdtv (wdtvlive.ver file present), otherwise the box will refuse to flash) link and info.
• optware support not available at the moment (wdtv is supported, hopefully in time there will be support for wdtvlive) link and info.
• ext3 hdd based firmware (for more advanced users) link and info.
• debian.

benchmarks :

harddisk speed :

• hddparm returned 15mb/s read
• Samba gives up to 7mb/s read

Kung Fu Panda

Yesterday is history Tomorrow is a mystery But today is a gift that why it is called "present".

what is life

so what is life after all ?
after reading "A brief history of time" by Stephen W. Hawking you get the idea that life is part of the universe, and that there is more in this universe.
so the idea i want to say about is the following :
imagine the world is the battlefield of between order and disorder, and each living "things" fights by one side or by the other, and the forces that are guiding the "everything" are so deep inside every living "things", that there is no escape.
Imagine Order (aka life) : imagine a horde of bacteria that takes some primary mater and create complicated structures (copies of itself) and thus it brings order, then the bacteria die and it is decomposed by the sun rays, humidity, ... other stuff, and this creates disorder.
so as Hawking said in his book the chaos in the universe is growing (also he named the chaos : entropy, and that this is the 2nd law of thermodynamics ).
So what was i talking about ?
there are forces of order and chaos inside me that are fighting over me.
and just the like inside we have to choose our side in a bigger world, and then we have to scale this even further, and again and again ...
hopefully i will update this soon. good night for now (if anybody is reading).

vlc subtitles video

So in the last time i was playing a with vlc (working actually) so here i got a few tips and tricks for all:

• Stream a file over the network in realtime using multicast:

  vlc file.avi :sout-all ":sout=#std{access=udp{ttl=1},mux=ts,dst=226.0.0.10:1234}"
  

  Then you can open it with :

  vlc udp://@226.0.0.10:1234
  

• Adding .srt subtitles to a video , hardcoding subtitles, burning subtitles :
  Note that burning subtitles require encoding the video, so you may loose quality.

  vlc file.avi :sub-file="subfile.srt" :subsdec-align=0 :freetype-rel-fontsize=16 :sout-all  \
  ":sout=#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=1000,soverlay}:std{access=file,mux=ps,dst=file.ps}"
  

  Note that you specify codec here :

  transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=1000,soverlay}
  

This was tested under linux, for windows it should also work.

H1N1 DNA from geeks point of view

Here is a nice article about DNA, H1N1, and geeks :
"The Influenza virus is quite fascinating. Allow me to ramble on…
Comparison to Computer Viruses :
How many bits does it take to kill a human? "
source : http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=353

vlc transcoding entire folder

Here is a script to use vlc to transcode videos stored in a folder :

#!/bin/sh
DIR_TRANS='transcoded'

mkdir -p $DIR_TRANS

for filename in `ls *.mp4`
do
 vlc $filename ":sout=#transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=1200,scale=1,acodec=mp4a,ab=256,channels=2}\
:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=mp4,dst=$DIR_TRANS/$filename}}" --play-and-exit
done

Gadget for my lady ...

A while ago we ordered a gadget, my wife's decision.
I got delivered 2 weeks ago on 15 of July at 12 , it was expect to arrive in the beginning of august.
The specialized personnel helped us to unpack the fragile gadget.
So here is what we got : a baby girl of 2.7 kg and 48 cm.
When unboxing she was demonstrating her voice and it was the sweetest sounds of life. Happy birthday Milena.

The Legend lives on

Sunday 12 July 2009, i had the luck to be at Alice Cooper concert/show, so i got only good emotions, THE LEGEND is still alive i say. i still can't come back to life after the show, and i just cant understand how did i managed to live until now without this. so here i got these videos using nokia 5800:
TODO
anyways it was good, the man still rocks, and we were rocked good that night.

light and darkness

light and darkness ...

it takes a spark to turn light into darkness
and a different spark to turn darkness to light
anyway both things are possible, but the thing that defines the wiseman is the ability to keep the light on. Normal people always change their states, life is complicated they say, and you get angry you get lost... somewhere on the path i lost myself too many times, and i wish it was different, wish i had had the serenity do separate light from darkness.
darkness is inside me, darkness all around me :(

How to for socket programming

So this is the best link i found until today that explains the linux network programming in c.
http://www.tenouk.com/cnlinuxsockettutorials.html
also there is information about winsockets.
Many thanks to the author.

Miele s5280 babycare baby care ...

Do you know what day was yesterday ? It was Miele's day.
Yesterday we were forced to buy a new vacuum cleaner (because our 1.5 years old Black and Decker died unexpectedly 5 weeks ago). Anyway i read so many reviews and user reviews and ratings that i just had to made a post in my blog about this.
So yesterday we finally made it ( found the courage to pay for Miele with Hepa filter and AntiAlergic head ), here on Cyprus it was 280 euro.
Well the first impressions are positive. Strong points : - Very silent - Very good suction - Hepa filter - AntiAlergic head to detect floor cleanliness - rubberized body - made in Germany - stainless steel tube - doesn't look like a starship ( compared to Dyson ) Weak points : - initial price - bag price - wish it was wet resistant anyway only positive thoughts until now, it is a piece of very good engineering, will keep on updating ...

life goes on ... eVrovision ...

my friend said i'm a hypocrit, not that he thinks so,
i call it openmindness, but probably i'm just getting old...

so eurovision was a surprise this year (2009), there were many nice songs :
1. Patricia Kaas : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1oxY6_qKBg
2. Sandra Nurmsalu : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF24kGXudpk&feature=related
... and some others, but these i liked the most ...

wish you a good night All.

yeah, i'm just getting old.
getting old is not bad it is just complicated.
the question about life is : are we shaping the world or is the world shaping us ?

i will give you all,
if only this is what you want,
until there is nothing to give,
until there is nothing to do.
until the shades of my existence will fade away ...
and when we are all gone, will somebody remember ?
we'll they say we won the battle with evil,
or did evil win, and we did nothing ?

what excuse do we have to stay and lie down in the luxury of our life,
and expect things to be given and newspapers delivered ?
are these the right news or just the one we need to continue with our living ?
and piece by piece we build the puzzle of our life,
strung through the present and dreaming about the future,
trying to forget the shameful past.

so many questions so little time... (until 21.12.12)

will i be able to educate the feeling of beauty in my children, as i was educated,
will i be able to offer at least the same i was offered ?

fight, shape urself and the world around you ...

change urself and others will follow ...

if i had the time to change the world, then the world could change me,
but i have only the time to change myself and hope that the world will follow ...

Many thanks to Nicola Tesla for the world we are living now ...
Many thanks to Albert Einstein for understanding the untouchable ...
Many thanks to Steven Hawking for he proved us all that he is the strongest in the whole world, for the power of the spirit can not be stopped by the walls, and the walls will break where spirit will touch.
Many thanks to V for the Idea, and the truth he taught us, that the idea is strong, and the bullets cant kill the idea, and in the end the Idea will kick many bastards ass, and all these scums will be buried under the history's sand, but the idea will live in our hearts, for what we are, for what it is ...

wish you a strong spirit.

My life and eBay ...

ah ebay, the next best thing ...

so many interesting things to have
(but wait Buddha said that wanting things is bad...)

anyway it is been 1 month since i am browsing eBay, and the only thing i can say is that i have seen many interesting things there. (eBay is one of the reasons i want posting my blog since 3 months)

Really i get the feeling that eBay brings the people together (or maybe it is a gambler's addiction). Anyway i just want to say that i have bid, and that i will bid more in the future.

So what i have learned :

On eBay you can find items that you cant find any other way.

There are people that make their living on eBay.

You must have a strategy to do the bids (some people are bidding in the last 1-5 seconds and they take the bid away from you).

You must be patient the items to arrive to you.

Anyway on eBay you can get a good deal or you can "get f***ed at the used car lounge".

more about eBay soon ...

Migration, imigrants and foreign countries ...

Long time didn't blog. And now here I am, concerned about complicated things. I am a software developer that know little about many things and that doesn't know how to sell my time and my abilities. I am now an immigrant in Cyprus, and while i am being here i am treated as an immigrant that steals somebody-else's job, and at home, the country where i from (Moldova), I am not treated like a person either. The European people look at people from my country like to people from "the poorest country of Europe". So there is little to say after words like this. I wish the situation was different, I wish we had normal people in the head of our country, but sadly the truth is bitter. We (the people of Moldova) are being pushed like cattle :

• Our government : makes our life miserable, by pretending that they are working for the people, but in the fact they do use people's money for their own good. They pretend to fight organized crime by organizing even a better crime institute that is legal and there is no justice to fight with it, everybody is involved.
• Romania : don't really likes Moldova because we don't dislike so much Russia for what it is, we don't dislike them so much because the ordinary people from Russia, they too are victims of the dictator regime that is being developed now there, they suffered in the passed and they will suffer from the lack of democracy.
• Russia : calls us nationalists, historically 70% of all people from Moldova are Romanians, also there are Romanians in Ukraine (North of Moldova and South). There are also Russians, Ukrainians, and other minorities. Basically the Russians came here in 1940, when the soviet union fought the World War 2, and many locals where moved to Siberia (especially the wealthy ones, and the ones that had access to good education in that time). So the Russians took their place and became the rulers of this land. Also to note that the Russians that came were not the most educated Russians of their time, it was just their government offered good relocation deals to them. So we are called by Russians nationalists because we want to learn the language the traditions of our people. And we have to feel a minority in our own country. That is sad.
• Europe and the West : ah the West, always so democratic and fair, and yet only fair and democratic to itself. And we feel this each time we want a visa to some west country. As i said before we are considered as the people of the poorest country in Europe by the West. And there is nothing else to say, probably we didn't deserved more respect from them until now.

So all mentioned above dislike the people from Moldova, yet Russia has work for us, Romania has work for us, Europe has work for us and our government uses the money made abroad by the people that are forced to find work abroad. And I'm just talking about work, I'm not saying what kind. Everybody is happy to have Moldova "the poorest country of Europe". I want to speak the language i grew up with. I want to have friends that speak the same language. I want my children to speak the same language as me. Is this so much to ask from a democratic world. I can speak and write in English, Russian and Romanian; also to speak in French, a bunch of other computer languages too, yet i am not a person in this world, because i don't come from a normal country, a country that respects its people. That is sad cause there a people that deserve to be respected in that country (and some people fade away without the much deserved respect). And in the light of the last events in Moldova, i understand there is no "my country" anymore. They have stolen our country from Us. All the people from Moldova, are people with no country, the sad part is that the people in the country they don't understand this. They are feed with useless information each day from the Government, the information sources for masses are not available, so we are doomed to crawl until the end of our miserable lives. God help us in this battle with the evil. So is there any way to feel a person here in this world, and now ? Complicated issue is this, and while i have no answer i could tell that, you have to learn, share your knowledge with others, become a personality, and then other people will respect you for what you are and not where you come from. Have a nice day children of the world, all of you. :)

Tribute to Isaac Asimov

In last 6 months i read a little less than 10 of his books :
The foundation series ( 7 books ), The Gods Themselves ...
The series explain how the human society can be simulated with mathematics : it just takes a lot of time to define the rules, patterns, and the initial values. Than the society is easily simulated more or less. In the end the author tells us that it is able to simulate it less cause : if we already live in a simulation then every simulation that we create and is less than the initial simulation will not be a complete simulation. Anyway all our deeds are logged, and everything is remembered. And we are controlled. So how will they control my wishes you say ? They already do : advertising. This is a multi billion business (and science) that is designed to control the masses wishes. The simulation is here to stay. Probably in the simulation there are some unconscious factors that are somehow genetically controlled and that are the reason our life is limited to 75 years.
To break free from the simulation : this is not a new trend (it is marketed for at least 50 years) or maybe I'm wrong.
So the question is : are there intelligent creatures on the moon that spy on our lives and experiment on us ?
So who are we? Are we really personalities or not ? Well i'm afraid i am not the personality i wished i was.
It is strange how people live their lives in content. Somehow i cannot find the peace in me. I wish i could did more, yet i cannot do it. I don't have the control on me to do the things i would like to do. I always knew what i should do, or what i could do, i just didn't dare enough. How to win this battle ? How do people win this battle. What can i say to the world ? More question than answers.
Anyway the way Asimov wrote is just amazing, beautiful mind is the expression. Here you can find more if you wish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov. If you ever decide to read something don't hesitate, and even if you don't you should still read him, try "The end of Eternity", very romantic.
When i read things like this i understand that the human mind is a beautiful thing and in life there is more than greed, corruption, war, hate, misunderstanding, disbelief, and greed again. Let's read of the better world so can build it. Good people wrote good books that deserved to be read, they spend their lives in imagining a better world, a world that can be built, we still have the power to participate at its building. Wish you all the best luck in making you life the way you want and to succeed.
right thinking, right talking and right doing.
start today so you can enjoy tomorrow.

GCC: linking with static and dynamic libraries

How to link compile with static and dynamic libraries :
gcc a.o -Wl,-Bstatic -lfoo -Wl,-Bdynamic -lbar
this will link libfoo.a staticly, and libbar.so dynamicly.

detailed nokia 5800 xm user review after 20 days

Hi all
This is a detailed user review of nokia 5800 xm phone.
Find more software for nokia 5800 here. Facts :

• After a little time i got used to the phone (yet i still miss the joystick).
• To no that with the touch you start using the phone with both hands, and sometimes one hand is not enough for normal phone usage (dialing a number or calling a dialed number), i dont say it is impossible to use it by one hand, it is just not as comfortable as the keyboard.
• In sun light it takes a while for the screen brightness to adapt.

Photos of the phone after 20 days of use :
Dirty : Clean :

And now about the applications in the phone :

• Main Menu and Screen rotation, based on the accelerometer : Menu is standard for nokia N series phones, though the rotating by acceleropeter function seems handy in some cases, it gets anoying many times. So it would be nice to have a button, or a shortcut for rotation.
• Clock, World time, Alarms : you can set multiple alarms (daily alarms, one time alarm, workdays alarms)
• Callendar : very handy, if you used callendar before you will use and this one :
• Input methods : the input methods are kinda ok for a keyboard person (haven't seen better).
• GPS : the gps receiver quality is "ok" ( "ok"= 3.5of5 , cause i have a bluetooth gps receiver and it doesn't loose the connection so fast as the nokia), So cold start should in open air should be arround 1 minute : i even got result around 45 sec. it is 32 channel gps receiver (at least this impression i have from the gps status screen). Yet the problem seems to be that the connections are lost, at least in the car, when the phone is placed somewhere hidden. As GPS for phone a give 4 of 5. I really dont have with what to compare, so it is subjective (at least i know that the gps is better than n95). So the good part with nokia you have free maps. And you can buy Voice and Tours (When visiting some country). Also you can cache all the maps you need on the phone (All europe is arround 1.3 GB and it fitts ok on the 8GB mini SD from the box)
• Applications : As i said in previous there are not many applciation for this phone , cause the platform is new, and the lack of joystick is felt in application compatibility. But in less than one month appeared a few free handy software (SymTorrent, Y-browser, MobilePaint), so i guess we will have a cure for this. Watch this blog for nokia 5800 software nokia5800software.blogspot.com
• Music player : indeed if you use the pone just for music you could squeeze 30 hours of music from it, at least i used it at work for 9 hours (radio + mp3) atand at the end of day it took me one battery line (this was the top battery line, so this might be more than 18% of battery life). Also Nokia has integrated podcast download and playing into the phone.
• Video Player and tv out : as video player is used Real Player (and most of the time it plays nicely), the only problem for me is that it doesn't open '.avi' files. Also you can watch youtube videos and save them, but the quality is the lowest, so to listen to sound you would prefer to open youtube in normal browser mode and use the flash plugin from the browser (video will lagg but sound is ok). Let's hope there will be other youtube browse applications.

UPDATE Aug 2010 : after using the phone for more than 1.5 years i can say that you definitely should not buy this phone, cause no good software and the phone just suck in every possible way (maybe except mp3 player), especially annoying is the fact that you have to dial twice cause the first time you get connection error.